Welcome to the Dollhouse
by Sailor Comet
Summary: Bakura is depressed. That is all that can be said in a summary.
1. A Little Bit of Background Info

Anything I write about Ryoh is a teensy tiny bit autobiographical. Hahahaha.

Welcome to the Dollhouse:

A Series of Vignettes.

One:

A little bit of background info.

---

Ryoh started his education in a very small, very private school. Memories of before first grade were all very blurry, save for the playground and the legos, but the events after that were important. He was a happy child, not short for friends (who all thought his white hair was very cool), and there was not a trace of any shyness or timidity. Indeed, the youngling was outgoing and always laughing.

Life at home was also picturesque. His mother was a tall, beautiful woman, her figure seemingly unaffected from the strains of bearing a child and raising it. Whatever job she had (Ryoh couldn't remember), she was good at it, and it paid well. His father was a computer technician, though his real passion lay in history rather than the future. One day, father told Ryoh, he would go on archeological digs and take the family with him, to places in Africa and even the United States. But that probably wouldn't be until Ryoh was in college. And college seemed so far off to Ryoh that it looked like the family would stay where they were forever.

The important thing there, however, was that Ryoh's mom and dad were _in_ _love_.

In second grade Ryoh's little sister was born. He'd wanted a younger sibling for as long as he could remember – though he'd wanted a brother, but he'd settle – because, as many friends as he might've had at school, none of them lived close enough and there was always a factor of loneliness when both mother and father were working. It was probably that loneliness that spawned his love of games; his father took a coffee break one evening and showed Ryoh how to play solitaire. Then it was video games – a Super Nintendo for Christmas that came with a bundle of games, followed by a Sega Genesis for his next birthday.

His little sister grew and was adorable, and when the end of fourth grade arrived for Ryoh, she was an energetic toddler with an extensive vocabulary. She had a collection of clip-on earrings and fake jewelry and was constantly bothering her parents to get her ears pierced. She would sometimes force Ryoh to sit down with her, and then she would get out her Mardi-Gras beads, and they would play. Ryoh didn't mind at all; he loved the attention and she stayed out of his room and his things (mostly due to a lock). The two were getting along perfectly.

Then there was an accident, something involving cars, and Ryoh had suppressed those memories so that he couldn't remember if somebody had crashed into their car or if they'd been hit crossing the street. All he knew were the basic facts, that his mother and little sister were dead and gone.

Because Ryoh had never actually gotten seriously upset with his sister – she wasn't old enough to do those incredibly infuriating things that younger sisters do – she left him with an idealized memory. She could do no wrong, and she was sweet and beautiful. His father had always been more the disciplinary figure than his mother, and so the same happened with Ryoh's memories of her. His mom was understanding and compassionate; she wasn't capable of anything but goodness.

Just before summer vacation that year, Ryoh got the eighteen-year-old brother of one of his friends to take him out and get his ears pierced. His hair was long enough that it almost entirely covered his ears – truthfully he was due to get it trimmed. But the next time his father told him it was time for a haircut, he resisted and threw a tantrum so loud that his dad declared he wouldn't pay for a haircut for Ryoh ever again. (He kept his word, and so he never found out about Ryoh's ears.)

His father had to transfer him to a public school then because of finances, without getting a refund for the deposit he'd paid of Ryoh's fifth grade tuition. Without his wife and daughter, the man grew restless. He lost motivation, slowly. There was no dramatic mourning after his wife's death, no months taken off from work. Instead he showed up at work a day after the funeral and tried to pick up where he'd left off. It was a month later that he wouldn't be able to get himself out of bed to go to work, only missing one day a week at first, sometimes making it all the way to Friday before he stayed home a day. Then it was two days each week, and then three. Ryoh didn't keep track of his father, so he wasn't sure how much of the time the man was staying home when he lost his job.

That was the point at which his father started taking long trips to do archeology, which hardly paid anything at all, but seemed to him to be the only way to hold onto his sanity. Putting his energy into taking care of his son never really occurred to him, so he put it into a job he enjoyed. Ryoh was left alone and had to learn financial management and cooking at the age of ten. (He burned his fingers in the boiling water once, one of his first times cooking a box diner, and so the tips of his fingers on his left hand are scarred. Because it's so small, and burn marks look different from scars that are a result of lacerations, hardly anybody ever notices.)

As for Ryoh, the public school wasn't much when compared with his old school. It was bigger and filled with rude and obnoxious cretins whom Ryoh didn't know and didn't want to know. For once, he was not eagerly chatting with his classmates during lunch or meeting with a group of buddies after school.

A year ago, the new setting might not have bothered him as much as it did. However, he was still shaken from the loss, and instead of confidence, he proceeded tentatively. That was possibly the worst approach he could have chosen. His self-doubt and uncertainty was palpable, and thus he was targeted. Every time he made even the slightest error, be it reading out loud in class and mispronouncing a word, or not knowing which brand of shoe was better (what did Ryoh care of Nike and whatever else somebody had on their feet?), one of the more malicious children would point it out and set nearly the entire class laughing. They didn't need a reason to attack, though – Ryoh's long hair, now to a length where he wore it in a ponytail and his earrings were clearly visible – was a constant source of insults. So was his lack of height; there wasn't a single student in his grade who was shorter than he was.

Ryoh's confidence had once been unshakable, but it wasn't long before he learned to stay quiet and out of the way. No longer was he talkative and gregarious. He made a few friendly acquaintances, but with his charming personality reduced to a memory, nothing much came of them. He just wasn't interesting enough to be bothered with. So instead he threw himself into his studies and his video games. When the Nintendo 64 came out he stopped buying school lunches in order to save money, until he had enough to pay for one from a pawnshop. Then he continued saving to buy a game for it. He lost a lot of weight during that period.

In seventh grade he began going through girlfriends, because although his colourless hair had been mocked since he arrived at that school, some of the girls found it appealing. He hardly stayed with one for two weeks, the longest relationships lasting perhaps a month, and was never single for very long.

In the beginning of eighth grade he accidentally let slip that he found one of the boys in his class slightly attractive. His current girlfriend broke up with him and suddenly he was single for a long stretch of time. The few friends he'd tried to make in fifth grade were still around, but the most any of them talked was to say 'hi, how're you doing,' in the hallway.

It was a lonely year. He cut his hair up to his chin (it had reached mid-back by that time) and wore it down again, almost proudly displaying the jagged edges that he had sheared himself. He slowly started to revel in his loneliness, and when he discovered the punk underground his wardrobe changed. Almost all the students at school stopped teasing him and left him completely alone when he began wearing enough chains to open his own S&M store. The few who persisted were easy to ignore.

He transferred schools again, and started ninth grade at a significantly better-ranked school on the other side of the city. His father had pursued archaeology and, unlike the majority of people in the field, struck it rich. He still stayed out of the country too much, but by now Ryoh wouldn't have been able to bear the man's presence.

He had been both looking forward to transferring again, and dreading it. The hope of actually meeting friends was there, but also the fear that he would still be a pariah. At least he knew what to expect at his old school. A small confidence boost was that he had a growth spurt over the summer, so he wouldn't be as short when compared with everybody else. He wasn't quite 'tall,' but he didn't look like a ten year old anymore.

It turned out, however, that his high school was one of the best things that ever happened to him. He made friends instantly. Within a month he invited three classmates to his apartment for a movie-night – Yoh, Kaga, and Kiriko. Yoh was a bit spacey, truth be told. He daydreamed and forgot homework. There were times when he would pause in the middle of a test, close his eyes, and start nodding his head to some song only he could hear. Still, he had good intentions, and he said what he was thinking. Kaga, who was a year older than everybody else, was rather loud and obnoxious. Though Kiriko claimed he was a sweetheart on the inside, he denied it fervently.

Then there was Kiriko. And it had been a while since Ryoh had a girlfriend.

To start, she was gorgeous. To continue, she was honest, kind, and liked his hair. To make the readers jealous, she was a very skilled kisser. She began to repair Ryoh's confidence, and soon enough he was once again the content, laughing boy he'd been before everything had gone to Hell. He, too, began to learn about the other side of her – her frustration at her personal weaknesses and the anger that she always bottled up. Under his influence, she learned that a healthy amount of indifference and cynicism was almost necessary. She was still almost scarily optimistic, but the expressions that Kaga and Yoh would get when she made a sardonic remark were priceless.

(Ryoh learned the joys of the flesh that year.)

The four of them, Ryoh, Kiriko, Kaga and Yoh, became very close friends in a very short time. They went out to the mall to hang out, because none of them had anything to do or because none of them wanted to be at their own homes, or sometimes would go to that one comics-and-gaming store to play Monster World (a game which Ryoh fell in love with and began to buy parts for). Doing those sorts of things with people, actually interacting with others, Ryoh was able to become the person he should have been. He discovered that he was rather good at making people laugh, and while 'class clown' was not an accurate term, he definitely could cheer a person up. Socializing not only became easier, it became fun.

At the end of the school year, Ryoh invited those three close friends and several classmates to his miniscule apartment for a party. He and Kiriko danced while eating slices of pizza, everybody talked and laughed, they watched "The Matrix," everybody whistled whenever Kiriko and Ryoh kissed, and it was perfect. Summer vacation was wonderful too (Kaga took them swimming at the school pool, which he'd been breaking into since last year), and Ryoh started to wonder if it was possible for good things to last.

Then his father gave him a birthday gift from Egypt.

Kiriko thought the Millennium Ring was "first rate neat," Kaga didn't comment on it except that it was too big for a necklace, and Yoh seemed to flat out hate the thing.

A week into the first semester of school, Kiriko died on his sofa while he screamed into the phone for an ambulance. He had no idea what had happened; they were playing Monster World, Kiriko called him a dork for having bought so many pieces for it, and the next thing he knew she was unconscious. The doctors told him that she'd always had a heart condition, and in addition to the loss Ryoh had to contend with the fact that she'd never told him about that.

He didn't mention to the police that when she'd collapsed, the game pieces were in places he didn't remember putting them. It seemed like a stupid and irrelevant detail at the time.

Kaga and Yoh tried to comfort him, because admittedly he wasn't bawling (the tears had only lasted for two hours before Ryoh'd clamed himself down), but he was too quiet, and he wasn't smiling. They did a fairly good job, but the damage was done. Then one day Yoh announced that his family was moving, and then Kaga got expelled, and Ryoh was alone again. He honestly did try to keep in touch, but Kaga was bad at responding to letters and Yoh had, in typical spacey Yoh fashion, forgotten to give him an address or telephone number. He quickly reverted back to his shy, quiet side. There were still classmates who tried to talk to him, and that was good, but in the middle of the year his father asked if he wanted to go to a better school (better meaning more expensive, because apparently his father was doing rather well in his business) and Ryoh decided to transfer.

One year and two schools later, Ryoh found himself attending the same school as Yuugi.

---

Illustration: ww w.deviantart.co m/view/6449550/


	2. Consequentially

The thing about this fic, which you might notice, is that it is largely experimentation on my part. This is also the only fic in which I have ever written Bakura-abuse, and probably will remain the only fic in which I show Bakura abuse. It's a different abuse dynamic from most fics, too, or at least I try to make it so. Anyway. Going by manga, this follows the first time YamiBakura appears, the Monster World game. Going by anime, this would follow the Change of Heart duel, and there wouldn't actually be a bed or a wall, so we have to go by manga [or first series anime]. This is the only part of this fic which will occur during the actual series. What will follow will all be post-series.

---

Welcome To The Dollhouse:

A Series of Vignettes

Two:

Consequentially

---

When Ryoh woke up that morning, he knew. It was like waking up with an ache that you hadn't gone to sleep with, or realizing that over the night, while you slept, the flu had set in. It was just something that hadn't been there when he'd gone to bed, but now it was. The fact was, Ryoh woke up before the alarm clock, and after realizing that it was too early to be awake, he realized that Yami Bakura had returned.  
  
The spirit sat on the end of Ryoh's bed. Beneath him, the sheets were still, even as he shifted to face his now-awake landlord. His face was neutral; he never faced Ryoh with his poker-face sneer. That was reserved for everybody else. Ryoh, he'd said at the very beginning, was the other half of his soul; as such, he couldn't ever hate the boy. But he could hate Ryoh's actions, he'd warned, and there would be consequences if he ever fell in hate with what the teen did.   
  
Ryoh was quiet as the spirit's fist clenched in the collar of his flannel pajamas, their connection with the Ring-bearer giving Yami Bakura some illusion of solidity. "I have standards," Yami Bakura said, by way of explanation.   
  
Then he punched Ryoh with his free hand.  
  
"And I hold myself and everybody else to those standards," he went on while Ryoh's vision became stable. "I told you there would be consequences. It's your own stupidity that's led to this."   
  
Ryoh's tongue moved in his mouth to check for loose teeth. That sort of thing would be difficult to explain. Fortunately for him, there were none. The next attack was to slam his head into the wall. A red line made its way down the floral-printed paper. Head wounds bled a lot, Ryoh knew. That was unfortunate.   
  
"So the question is," continued the spirit, "was it worth it?"  
  
Ryoh understood consequences. He knew whose fault his loneliness was; he knew which of his actions had led to it. The one who was to blame was himself; it always had been. He shared Yami Bakura's high standards for themselves – being the same person, there were of course some traits they had in common. And both of them agreed; when you fucked up, you paid the price. You bore the punishment, and you _suffered quietly._ Yami Bakura did not blame the Pharaoh for his imprisonment in the Ring, nor for his consequent deaths and his pain. He knew who was responsible. The King of Thieves would not deny his guilt.  
  
The consequences of allowing the spirit to have his double zero roll had weighed in Ryoh's mind with the consequences of resistance. He'd known what would happen; too many mistakes and errors had shown him what rushing in blindly led to. So he'd considered his options and made his choice.  
  
Cause and effect, trial and error – consequences. It was either Yuugi's blank stare and Anzu's, Jounouchi's, and Honda's hate; or his pain and the spirit's loathing.   
  
The best part was that Yuugi wouldn't ever know.


	3. Know Your Rights

You get really short parts in this fic. I mean _really_ short.  
These parts all take place **AFTER** the end of the series, from here on out. And it'll be less disjointed now. I promise. XP  
I'm going to try to get part 4 out before I leave for college (August 16th). It's halfway written, so let's hope.  
[i'm sorry for using a mostly american school system but i just don't know enough aboot the japanese systems so i'm not going to pretend that i do.]

---

**Welcome to the Dollhouse:**

**A Series of Vignettes**

**Three:**

**Know Your Rights**

---

Ryoh's teachers had accepted long ago that he wasn't going to pass 11th grade. He'd started out a promising student, but had quickly ceased turning in homework assignments, and his high test scores had fallen rapidly. The teachers speculated -- perhaps it was drugs, or family troubles -- but in the end they wrote him off as a failure and went on to grading the other students' papers. It simply wasn't their problem if he wasn't going to put any effort into his education. The only one who hadn't accepted that he was going to be held back a year was Ryoh himself.  
  
During the year, the fact that he was uncontrollable and dangerous had taken priority over schoolwork. It was more important to keep both himself and his friends alive than to make sure he finished a research paper, or even started working on it. Quite frankly, he hadn't given his studies much of a second thought. Now that the spirit was gone, however, the fact that he was failing -- failing an entire grade, when he was accustomed to being an Honour Roll student -- was apparent, and inconceivable. Even Yuugi and the others were going to pass, which only added to his inability to accept the facts. Truth be told, it made him mad with jealousy. It hadn't been his fault that he'd been a danger to himself and others, and now he got to suffer for it even after the problem was removed. The lack of fairness was infuriating.  
  
However, if nobody had made much of a deal of it, Ryoh would have adapted and moved on. He was generally apathetic after the first few hours of agonizing over things, and it wasn't as though he had anything to look forward to after high school. With a lack of ambition and direction, an extra year before college wasn't much of a problem, and even had the advantage of giving him more time to figure out where he wanted to go in life. No, Ryoh would have calmed down and accepted his failure, if only his father hadn't made such a big fuss.  
  
The man had yelled more than he had any right to, in Ryoh's opinion. It would have been easier if he'd been on the phone; Ryoh could have simply toned him out and made Ramen for dinner. But, no, the elder Bakura had personally come down to Ryoh's apartment to let his son know just how disappointed in him he was.  
  
It had been one thing to face Yami Bakura's anger, which Ryoh knew he deserved. The spirit was never angry with his landlord without cause, and that had been one small thing which Ryoh had liked in the thief. For his father, who was never there when Ryoh needed him, to be so upset over part of Ryoh's life, which the man had effectively walked out of years ago, upset Ryoh as well. So he'd argued back.  
  
It had been a new experience, to say the least, and when their shouting match had ended, not due to either of them backing down or compromising but rather a neighbor banging on their door and demanding that they 'shut the Hell up,' Ryoh had been left with a good deal of anger constricting his chest. His father had stormed out, perhaps in an even worse mood than when he arrived, and Ryoh had gone to his room to sit, dazed, on the bed.  
  
To be perfectly truthful, Ryoh was not used to being actually angry with somebody. He'd been mad at Yami Bakura -- had _hated_ the spirit -- but since he'd acquired the Ring, the spirit had been the cause of everything negative in his life. The thief had been the _only_ thing he'd felt anger toward in years. To feel that same emotion against another human being, his own father, even, was shocking. To realize that it extended to jealousy and irritation toward Yuugi and the others who wouldn't have to deal with unfairly irritated parents was unbelievable. Yuugi hadn't yelled at him like his father had; why would he be upset with Yuugi?  
  
Ryoh couldn't remember the last time anger and hatred had been his emotions. They were Yami Bakura's. 


	4. Hitting Below the Belt

I leave for college in less than 12 hours.  
I spell it Ryoh instead of Ryou because people spell it YuGiOh instead of Yuugiou. Shonen Jump spells it Ryo because the "u" confuses people who can't speak Japanese.

Welcome to the Dollhouse:

A Series of Vignettes.

Four:

Hitting Below the Belt

---

Despite the fact that there was no feasible way to prevent himself from failing 11th grade, Ryoh continued to come to school for the final month before summer vacation. Truth be told, he saw no point in cutting class, since his only friends would still be in school maintaining their passing grades. Even though the only real time to socialize was during lunch, Ryoh showed up for the entire day of classes. The teachers were slightly perplexed.

Besides the motivation from being able to be with friends and not worry about guaranteeing their deaths by talking to them, there was Yuugi. Yuugi most definitely was not as happy as Ryoh about the loss of the Millennium Items. Ryoh's sentiments went along the lines of "good riddance." Yuugi, on the other hand, while he wasn't horribly depressed, wasn't quite as chipper as he used to be. Yet he was still in school, and he had far more cause to skip. So Ryoh continued to attend as well, despite his jealousy of the other boy.

The jealousy Ryoh felt toward Yuugi was for having had a kind, protective companion to share his soul with, and he was scared to realize it had been there ever since the end of Monster World. It was frightening to know that he had indeed felt negative emotions toward others even before the Ring Spirit had been banished a final time. While Ryoh knew that a little jealousy was a long way off from declaring himself King of Thieves and killing anybody who got in his way, being jealous of _Yuugi_ was the factor that made him push any negative emotions down, suppressing everything but shallow happiness. Even one little similarity to the thief was one too many.

Yuugi was a good person, though, and it was hard to be angry with him while actually in his presence. He was painfully nice and gregarious. So Ryoh kept going to school each day to be around Yuugi and the others. But mostly to be around Yuugi.

---

Yuugi was quite proud of himself. After weeks of studying with Anzu, he had finally managed to score above fifty on a test, and was waving the paper with the red sixty-five at Jounouchi. It was proof that he and Anzu actually _were_ studying when he went over to her house after school, he yelled at Jounouchi, not quite realizing that the rest of the class was listening with amusement.

Jounouchi and Honda, on the other hand, had scored a thirty and a forty-five respectively, so neither of them were particularly receptive to Yuugi's delight at his comparatively high score.

"Hey, Bakura," Jounouchi called, leaning over the back of his chair to see the white-haired teen, "what'd you score?" Jounouchi expected that Bakura had flunked just as badly as he had—Ryoh had told the others the week before that the teachers had let him know he wasn't going to make it to the next year no matter what. If Jounouchi had found himself in that situation, he would have stopped coming to school, or if he still came to classes, stopped trying. Therefore, Bakura's score probably wasn't anything to be proud of.

Ryoh looked down, face slightly red, as he held up his paper. The perfect one hundred percent glared at Jounouchi in all its glory. The blond gaped.

"That's not right," he yelled, snatching Ryoh's paper and glaring back at it, as though he could will the red marks to wiggle into a lower score. They rudely refused.

"I wouldn't mind helping you study." Ryoh smiled slightly as he lightly tugged his paper out of the blond's hands. "You could compete with Yuugi. We have two more tests in this class before the year ends, right?"

Honda grinned. Ryoh knew what he was doing; turn something into a competition and Jounouchi's enthusiasm level would shoot up. The brunet himself didn't really care much, though, and stayed silent. The blond predictably agreed.

"You're goin' _down_, Yuugi!" Jounouchi declared, pointing dramatically at his shorter friend.

---

Jounouchi's next test score was improved—a forty-six—but Yuugi's had risen to a sevent-two. Bakura tried to shove his test into his bag before his grade could be seen, but Jounouchi had grabbed the paper out of his hands and was complaining about the unfairness of it all before Ryoh even realized he was no longer holding it. Ryoh couldn't help but laugh.

"I'm sorry, Jounouchi, but I almost knew it would happen," he smiled, holding his hands up to show his defenselessness. "You don't retain anything from class, and studying with you, you're like a puppy. All you hear is blah-blah-blah, blah, Jounouchi, blah, blah-blah-blah-blah, blah." He laughed softly again, not noticing the look that had come over the blond's face.

Bakura had just called him a _puppy_. He was pissed.

If he had thought logically about it, there was actually no way for Ryoh to realize how much the word upset him. The white-haired boy had been around so rarely when Kaiba and Jounouchi were taunting each other—usually Ryoh had been injured or just not there—or else it had been Yami Bakura watching the pair squabble. Nobody had thought to tell him about the one insult that always got a reaction from Jounouchi, since it was practically a given. The fact was simply that he hadn't ever seen Jounouchi get so riled up from the word.

Except Jounouchi wasn't thinking logically, because nobody does when they're upset. Luckily for Bakura, he couldn't simply just punch the other teen, angry as he was. Bakura was, after all, a friend. He could, however, fight dirty.

"Eh, well," he said with feigned carelessness, and Yuugi and the others worried. They knew it was fake. Ryoh, though, didn't realize. "Even with my shit-awful grades, at least I'm not going to _fail_."

Ryoh's mouth dropped open.

"Though it doesn't make any sense to me," Jounouchi continued. "All your scores are perfect. Why are _you_ being held back a year?"

Ryoh's mouth closed and his head snapped to looking at the floor, while his shoulders hunched over, and his hands balled into fists. Jounouchi still wasn't finished.

"You even have time to help me out. Besides that, you're still coming to school every day! I just don't get it." The blond shrugged, an exaggeratedly nonchalant motion. Ryoh's shoulder twitched, once, as though he were struggling not to start shaking. "Why're you still here?"

"Shut up," Ryoh hissed. "Just _shut up_. You have no idea." Though the blond did have an idea, Ryoh thought, and that was part of what made his remarks hurt so much. Jounouchi _knew_ why Ryoh had always been absent. He _knew_ why there were days when Ryoh had come in and done nothing but sit and stare at a wall, why Ryoh had been suspended for skipping detentions, and why there were holes in Ryoh's transcript where it hadn't transferred when Ryoh switched schools.

Ryoh's voice stayed steady, but only because he was speaking so softly it had no room to crack. "Do you know I've never gotten a grade beneath an eighty before this year? Do you know how much my dad _hates_ me for failing? Do you know that with your pathetic scores you should fail too, but the city can't afford to keep re-teaching _all_ of its dunces, and so they pass more than half of you morons who aren't fit for society?"

Ryoh lifted his head. His bangs were hanging in his face, the thin white strands halfway obscuring his eyes. "Do you want to know _why_ I'm here now?" He swallowed visibly. Usually when he was this angry he froze, unable to react, but somehow now he had perfect command of his tongue and was using it. "Because you all are the only friends I've got, and I don't want to be at home by myself everyday, doing nothing. But, I dunno, maybe I should just stay home from now on."

He turned and grabbed his bag, beginning to leave.

Jounouchi was unable to let him get away with the last word, though. He hadn't taken two steps before the blond's voice reached him again.

"Man, if I didn't know better, I'd think we saved the wrong Bakura."

Ryoh froze, his eyes wide with pain and rage. He wanted to hit something. He wanted to hit Jounouchi.

He ran out of the classroom.


End file.
